About Michael Binkley

Michael Binkley is among Canada’s most successful self-represented artists. He has been a professional stone sculptor for over 35 years and will maintain his studio and gallery in Squamish, BC, Canada when it is finished being built. Binkley works in a wide variety of stone and idiom, however his favourite subject for his artwork is the human nude.

ARTIST STATEMENT
I want to reconnect individuals to their primal instinct of touch. The sensory experience of touch is quickly de-programmed in most of us during childhood. ‘Don’t touch’ is a phrase often spoken to a child during formative years, and we learn that it is almost taboo to touch objects. This imposed societal constraint pushes our desire to touch to a deep place within us and sculpture is one means to resurface that instinct. Stone sculpture is the oldest art form known to Man and if I can entice a viewer to want to touch one of my sculptures, I feel I have succeeded in making a good art work.

When carving sculpture, I try to pay as much attention to the finishing of the piece as I do to the design – different textures are integral to the piece itself, as it supports my desire to have people touch my work as part of their interaction with a particular piece.

In our contemporary world of ‘conceptual art’ as popular art form, I believe there is a missing piece that dismisses line and form, positive and negative space and composition of a discrete sculpture, which I feel is truly valuable in aiding an individual’s interaction with art through touch.”

Check out some videos about Binkley and his work. There are a few interview videos where you can get an introduction to the artist, find out about his inspiration, the tools he uses and some of his projects. There are also some videos about his recent sculptures. It is difficult to express three dimensional artwork in this two dimensional medium of the computer screen, so these videos help to overcome this problem.

This is a place for his growing library of documentation of his career, so check back again in the future.

Have you ever wanted to try stone carving? Although Michael does not teach full time, he has led several workshops on stone carving and has developed a reputation of being patient, inclusive and encouraging. Check out Michael’s next carving workshop.